42. Day Out Saving the World / 50. Calendar

42.  Day Out Saving the World / 50.  Calendar

Choosing a theme for a calendar is a difficult prospect and it's taken slightly longer than anticipated to agree on a theme so the 2015 calendar is now a 2016 calendar...  In the end we found the answer hidden on our own to-do list - a superhero day out!

The plan was simple: dress up as superheroes and run around London finding things to save and climb and stuff, taking photos for the calendar as we went.

Having acquired costumes (from the Party Store in Clapham Junction - definitely recommend trying before you buy as the pre-made costumes seem to only fit the lady on the front of the packet and no other humans), borrowed a decent camera from Paula from the gym and bribed Alex into being the photographer, everything was ready to go until my hangover from Louise and Lori's Christmas party threatened to ruin everything.  It was a hangover worse than even the one I had from my work Christmas party; I could barely open my eyes and the idea of climbing anywhere past the sofa seemed completely unachievable.

But suddenly...

Anett uttered the immortal words guaranteed to force me to man up in any given situation:

"This is our last chance to do this"

So I made an epic Spanish tortilla and two rounds of very strong coffee and we started face painting and pulled on our tights.  Despite the availability of a photographer and a decent camera, we still had to spend a couple of minutes taking super-selfies before we left the flat.

Ready to save London

We'd made a list in advance of a few different photo ideas and locations but we started close to home at the ping pong table around the corner.  It has to be said that some ideas translated better into photos than others; the 'super-slamming rubbish into a bin' concept did not execute quite as well as anticipated!

As we mounted the bins, Anett wished her costume came with gloves too.

It's fair to say that our antics (not just the far from impressive bin climbing stunt) drew some attention and there are probably a few confused tourists out there still wondering what it was all about.  At the cinema, people found it hard to believe that we were just there to see a film...  The truth of the matter is that we just hadn't had time to go home and get changed!  Fortunately Victoria didn't mind having some slightly unconventional film/dinner buddies and even took a couple more photos for us.

Uh oh!  Looks like a chick flick!

Superhero day out / calendar list trumps!

Originality: 5/5 - safe to say we were the only people out doing this
Cost: 4/5 - just the outfits and a travelcard
Fun factor: 5/5 - hilarious AND helped clear the hangover

Anett's busily editing the photos so the finished calendar will be ready for 2016 - let us know (and give us money) if you want a copy!

7. Harry Potter Movie Marathon

7.  Harry Potter Movie Marathon

starring...

Anett as Harry

Phil as Hermione

Lotti as Dumbledore

Carla as Hagrid/Snape

Carly as Malfoy

Tino as He Who Shall Not be Named

Spike as Dobby/Ron

On paper this one sounded pretty simple: just watch all 8 Harry Potter films over the course of a weekend.  Job done, right?  Not in our house!  What followed was a full weekend of Harry Potter themed activities, fancy dress, drinking games, too much sugar and of course 19 hours of sitting on the sofa.  Oh and we did a lot of knitting.  A lot.

As all good bank holiday weekends do, it started with an early morning shopping trip in the rain.  Thanks England.  As a further complication, it turns out that shops in Clapham don't open until at least 9:30 on a Saturday morning.  Still eventually we stocked up on all the essentials and only started the marathon an hour late.  Carla and Carly had arrived with two tiny dogs in two tiny costumes so it was time for the rest of us to get into costume too.

Doggy Dobby and Doggy Voldemort

Hermione

Harry

Of course no Harry Potter outfit is complete without a good scarf in house colours, so Anett and Carly had to teach Carla and I how to knit while Lotti quietly got on with her Dumbledore scarf (alas she did not take on my suggestion that she knit herself a beard).  I'll not dwell on the result of mine and Carla's knit-off but I will say this: size matters.

Sunday's section was much more even

Given that we started at 11am with the Hogwarts kids aged about 10 years old, it seemed appropriate to kick off with some HP-style snacks.  We had Every Flavour Beans, jelly Scabbers, homemade chocolate frogs and some rather dubious house-themed snacks (cheesy puffs for Hufflepuff, cherries for Gryffindor, eggs for Ravenclaw and jelly snakes for Slytherin).

Once we hit film number 3 though it was time to hit the Polyjuice potion, get out the sorting hat and play the world's most complicated drinking game.  It was a 4-player game with different rules for each person.

We complicated it further with another rule: every time there was polyjuice potion in the film, we all drank a shot of polyjuice potion (a concoction containing various quantities of vodka, apple juice, green food colouring and anything else we could think of to chuck in), put our rules into the sorting hat and drew out a new set.  We also added in a couple of rules, resulting in almost constant shouting of 'SEXUAL TENSION!' throughout the last 4 films.

Around 2am we finished film number 5 and decided we needed a sleep break.  We intended to restart viewing at 6am.  We actually woke up at 8am.  Saturday's rain had cleared and the outside world was looking like an increasingly attractive option.  We were starting to worry about DVT.  The only possible solution was to get through the last 3 films as quickly as we could (still about 7 hours) and so we pushed on, pausing only to make a video that has to be viewed to be understood...

Finally, video made, Voldemort defeated, scarves knitted and Harry Ron and Hermione all grown up and much better at acting than 19 hours earlier, it was all over.  We were all by this point completely desperate to get out into the sunshine and run off some of the excess sugar so that's exactly what happened.  

Harry Potter Movie Marathon list trumps!

Cost: 4/5 (Only £25 for all 8 films from Amazon, but we did get carried away buying sweets and wool and stuff)

Originality: 4/5 (OK we're definitely not the first people to do this but dogs in costume, knitting, drinking games AND a video is a pretty unique combination)

Fun Factor:  4/5 (Games were fun, video was fun, films were classic but let's face it, after 19 hours of sitting watching TV and knitting we all had cabin fever)